FORT COLLINS – The Colorado State men’s basketball season starts on Friday night against Montana, and athletic director Jack Graham intends on being front-and-center for the contest.

“I will be at every home basketball game and I will be at as many of the away games as I can possibly make without being a burden to the team,” he said.

Why wouldn’t he be?

Well…

It’s a question many believe a legitimate one after late last season when Graham was a no-show at the NCAA Tournament in Louisville, Ky. Many took the snub hard, which Graham understands. But he also wants it to be known he would have loved to be with then-coach Tim Miles and his players in the school’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2003.

“First of all I wasn’t at the NCAA tournament because I had my hip replaced,” Graham said. “I was just out of the hospital, literally, just three or four days before the tournament started. I did take some heat over that. It’s kind of like ‘Why don’t you come over here and have this experience right alongside me?’ If anybody wanted to be at the NCAA Tournament, it was me. My heart was broken that I wasn’t there. Believe me, everybody knew that’s how I felt.”

And as for anyone wondering how committed he is to other sports that aren’t football, he quickly dismisses the notion.

“I think I’m a pretty visible athletic director,” Graham said. “I was in Laramie to watch our women’s volleyball team play the University of Wyoming. I led a bunch of people down there. We had a reception, we showed up en masse with all of our cheerleaders. I go to golf matches, I care. I absolutely care. Not only that, it’s fun.”

Follow Chris Dempsey on Twitter @dempseypost or email him at cdempsey@denverpost.com

BS!!!! He was in Mexico on vacation. Face it, if it’s not FB (although I’m not sure why, they are terrible) he doesn’t care.

ColoFootballfan

Would agree with that. This guy knows nothing about being an AD and cares only about football. He doesn’t get that sport either. First, you build a winning team and manage to get more than 11,000 per game to go to Hughes. Then you slowly build alumni and community support for a bigger stadium. Then you consider it and then you try to build it. Would take at least 5-7 years of laying the groundwork before you could even imagine CSU being able to fill Hughes let alone a new stadium (especially when you consider they only filled it with marquee games even when they were good under Lubick). The truth is Graham knows CSU hasn’t done things right for a long long time and we are getting ready to be left out of the National Picture due to lack of stadium, lack of fan support, lack of conference, lack of TV exposure and lack of talent. A stadium that’s big enough to get you into a BCS conference isn’t enough alone and is putting the cart before the horse. CSU needs to focus on basketball and slowly build their football program to a level it has never been at — a sustainable top 50 program with at least 30K fans to every game regardless of record — and then they will have a chance to get noticed by one of the 6 conferences that will matter in the new landscape. Basketball can get there faster and get the institution noticed. Football is trying to go where it has never gone before and hiring a blowhard isn’t going to help.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.